Thousands Mark Easter Sunday in Jerusalem
By KRISTEN STEVENS

The Associated Press
03/27/05 16:33 EST

JERUSALEM (AP) – Thousands of Christians from around the world gathered
at Jerusalem holy sites to celebrate Easter Sunday, marking the day
with prayer and hymns.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, the top Roman Catholic
official in the Holy Land, celebrated Mass at the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher, built over the skull-shaped rocky mount believed to be
the place where Jesus was crucified.

More than 20 Armenian priests cloaked in black gowns and head dress
followed Sabbah into the candlelit church singing the Lord’s Prayer.
The Catholic priest emerged from the Sepulcher with a flame and lit
worshippers’ candles, which gradually illuminated the painted dome
ceiling erected in the Crusader era.

The Easter services underlined one of Christianity’s doctrinal
differences: Roman Catholics believe Jesus Christ was buried in the
Holy Sepulcher, while many Protestant denominations believe he was
buried in the nearby Garden Tomb.

The recent calm in Israeli-Palestinian fighting has attracted many
more foreign pilgrims to Jerusalem this year for the Holy Week than
in recent years. But the numbers were still lower than the several
thousand who used to come before the outbreak of violence in September
2000.

Karen Abel, 39, a secretary from Eclectic, Ala., was among the
Protestants gathered at sunrise to mark the day at the site of the
Garden Tomb. She said she did not hesitate to make her first trip to
the Holy Land.

“Christ died here for our sins,” she said. “I feel mighty protected
by that.”

Bix Baker, 53, and his wife Becky, 51, came from Minnesota to spend
the Easter holiday with their daughter, who does consulting work for
city officials in Ramallah.

Sitting inside Christianity’s holiest church with his wife and
daughter, the high school science teacher said his students told him
he was crazy to travel to Israel.

“We weren’t afraid to come,” Baker said. “Things seem to be different
now, but we would have come anyway because this is where our daughter
lives.”

Catholics arriving in missionary groups from Spain and France said
they included the ailing Pope in their prayers Sunday.

As part of ongoing efforts to ease travel restraints on the
Palestinian population, the army announced Sunday that as many as
8,200 Palestinians from the West Bank and 250 from Gaza would be
granted daily permits into either Jerusalem or Nazareth during the
Easter celebration.

However, with this year’s celebrations coinciding with the Jewish
Festival of Purim, the Israeli military imposed general travel
restrictions on Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza from Wednesday
through Sunday, steering many Christians away from requesting
permission to travel to Jerusalem.

In Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, hundreds of worshippers prayed
and lit candles. A few Palestinians inside the church called for
the resignation of Patriarch Irineos I, the highest Greek Orthodox
cleric in the Holy Land, to protest alleged property deals the Greek
Orthodox church has made with Jewish groups trying to expand their
hold on Palestinian neighborhoods in the disputed city.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress